


how can you save the world from itself?

by bechloehuh, chloebeale (bechloehuh)



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, F/F, Fluff, Mentions of Suicide, and very depressed, chloe is lonely, dark tones
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 00:28:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20497883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bechloehuh/pseuds/bechloehuh, https://archiveofourown.org/users/bechloehuh/pseuds/chloebeale
Summary: It’s the first time she’s felt free since all this started. The first time her mind feels at ease. Her window is all the way down, Landslide is playing as the evening sun slowly disappears over the horizon, and Chloe feels okay. (3 part zombie apocalypse au)





	how can you save the world from itself?

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from through the valley by shawn james

_ “these burdens weigh so heavily _  
_ when our demons we must carry _  
_ clinging to this fleeting breath _ _  
_dying for a fighting chance”

\- we carry on, the phantoms

* * *

**BREAKING NEWS: SHARP RISE IN REPORTED CASES OF ATTACKS CAUSED BY DEADLY VIRUS**

** _“-understand that, uh, emergency services are currently at the scene of a riot, of sorts, in the Southcenter area of Barden. It appears this riot is linked with the Nationwide pandemic, with deaths spiking in places all over the country, such as here in Atlanta; in places like California, Washington, Texas, Florida, and we believe New York, too. Federal officials are on their way to the scene right now but- but police are urging residents in that area to-”_ **

** _“-Holy shit. It’s worse than I thought.”_ **

** _“Chlo, it’s fine, the military will probably just-” Tom’s amused voice is cut off by the sound of banging against the door, and Chloe jumps. The two of them look towards the door, waiting for a few moments for something to inevitably break it down, but nothing happens. _ **

** _(Chloe swears she hears a quiet groan from the other side but she writes that off as the recent news broadcasts messing with her head.)_ **

** _It’s when Tom starts to walk over to answer it that her instincts kick in, and she grabs his arm, pulling him back. _ **

** _“Chlo, what are y-”_ **

** _“-Shh!”_ **

** _“What the hell?”_ **

** _She shoots him a warning look, before slowly making her way over to the door, making sure to keep her footsteps light. She takes a deep breath in before looking through the peephole. _ **

** _She pulls away, turning to look at Tom, and he looks worried. _ **

** _“Who is it?”_ **

** _“It’s Bumper,” she whispers. “He looks sick.”_ **

** _Then his worried look turns into a smile, and he’s walking over to the door and opening it before she even has a chance to ask him what he’s doing._ **

** _“Hey Bump, what’s- woah, easy.”_ **

** _Bumper stumbles inside, groaning, and Tom grabs him by the shoulders to steady him as he asks him what he’s doing. Chloe can feel the panic rising as she takes a few steps behind her, her back coming into contact with the kitchen counter, and she doesn’t take her eyes off of the two men as she reaches behind her for the pan that she had been using to make their dinner earlier._ **

** _“Bumper, dude, you okay? What’s going on, man?”_ **

** _“Tom.” She warns, and he looks at her, a confused look on his face, before Bumper grunts again, this time louder._ **

** _Then Bumper is moving closer to Tom, and Tom is pushing him back as he tells him to back off, but Bumper isn’t listening, and Chloe feels like she can’t move. Like she’s rooted to the spot, watching as a bad dream unfolds in front of her eyes._ **

** _She watches, frozen, as Bumper gets angrier; watches her boyfriend stumble backwards and push Bumper away from him, his pushes getting harder and harder. She watches as Bumper falls back against the door and hits his head, only to immediately get back up._ **

** _It’s when Tom starts to shout, that Chloe is brought out of her stupor, and she’s picking up the pan and striding over to the two of them, lifting the pan up with two hands before smacking it on the back of Bumper’s shoulder. He looks back at her, snarling his teeth, and she gasps when she sees the hazy look in his eyes. He makes a move to lunge at her but Tom grabs him, yelling at him to stop._ **

** _She hits him again, this time on the head; hits him over and over again until she can see his skull crack and blood start to pour out, and with one last smash against his head with the blooded up pan, Bumper’s body falls to the floor, quickly creating a pool of blood around him._ **

** _“What the fuck, Chloe?”_ **

** _She’s breathing heavily, blood splattered on her face and clothes. “I told you not to open the door!”_ **

** _“You just killed him!”_ **

** _Her eyes widen, and she’s dropping the pan and sinking down onto her knees before she can stop herself, but Tom is there to catch her. He’s apologizing and telling her it’s okay, but she feels like her lungs are collapsing and it feels impossible to breathe._ **

** _“Hey, hey, it’s okay. I’m sorry, it’s okay.”_ **

* * *

Chloe gasps, her body jolting upright from her slouched position against the train window.

The dreams have been occurring more frequently than ever before, and this one, Chloe thinks, is maybe one of the worst ones yet. Most of them are about the night she witnessed Bumper’s death, only much more scarier than she remembers it being in real life. 

The other dreams are worse than anything she could ever think of, though. Chloe’s parents getting lost in a crowd of walkers, her boyfriend dying in the most brutal way, her best friends finding their way back to her, only for her to find out that they’re gonna die, are dying, or are already dead.

She tries to control her breathing, reaching behind her for the jacket that she was using as a pillow. The first thing she notices is that it’s already light outside. The second is that the empty abandoned train they’re staying in for the night is quiet, save for the sound of Tom’s light snores beside her and trickles of water dripping onto the floor.

She hits Tom on the arm, and he immediately reaches down for the homemade knife holster strapped to his leg.

“Hey!” she whisper yells, grabbing his hand before he can take the knife out. “It’s just me.”

“Jesus, Chlo.” His voice is rough with sleep and he sits up, rubbing a hand over his face.

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay,” he whispers, brushing his hand over hers. “You just scared me, that’s all.”

His hands are rough and warm. She leans over and kisses him on the forehead before reaching into her backpack and pulling out her journal. Sighing, she crosses off another day, puts the journal back, and leans back against the window with a heavy sigh.

“How long?”

“Almost three months.”

Tom stands up, stretches his arms above his head with a yawn, and walks over to check the barricaded doors.

“Chlo, it’s raining.”

She’s on her feet immediately, running over to the door to see that the light trickle that has been going on for the past day and a half is turning into a heavy downpour, and she feels like she smiles properly for the first time in weeks.

They gather their empty water bottles, holding them out of the small crack in the subway door and fill them up to the top. Chloe holds her hand out and flicks some water into Tom’s face, and he laughs as he wraps an arm around her waist and flicks some back at her.

They strip off and stand under the water flowing through the small hole in the roof on the bottom end of the train car, cleaning off the blood and dirt that has gathered on their skin since the last time that they showered three weeks ago. 

The water feels amazing on her skin, and she lets Tom run his hands through her hair, unknotting it and getting it clean - as clean as they can get it with no shampoo or conditioner - before she puts her hair up in a bun and does the same for him.

They stand naked under the water - hugging and kissing and smiling - until the rain stops

* * *

They find a house. The first empty house they’ve come across since they started to move west. 

Chloe’s not sure where they’re running to anymore. First, it was to find Aubrey, then it was to Tom’s brother’s house. Now, she’s not sure they were _ ever _ running _ to _ something to begin with.

Tom double checks - then triple checks - for any infected inside, as Chloe checks for food in the kitchen.

He comes back downstairs with a clean knife, holding a brand new baseball bat.

“Look at this,” he says, swinging it around. It almost hits him in the head, and Chloe laughs with a shake of her head before continuing to rummage through the cupboards. “Anything good?” he asks, placing a hand on her shoulder, and she smiles gently at the comforting feeling.

“Mostly just cans. Everything else is expired. Have you got the water?”

He leaves to fetch his backpack from where he had left it on the couch in the living room, coming back into the kitchen and placing the four bottles of water they collected from the stream a couple of hours ago. She gets to work finding a pan and making a fire - all those camping trips she used to take with Aubrey when she was in college finally being put to good use - and holds the pan over the fire to boil the water.

“_Okay_, MacGyver,” Tom says, and she smirks. “I’m gonna go look around for anything else we can take.”

She watches him head to the stairs. He’d checked around for infected so the house is safe, but watching him leave her still fills her with dread. It always does.

He’s been with her since the very beginning, and she can’t imagine not having him with her. It’s always been just the two of them, on the road together since all of this started. Her apartment block was a dead zone, and the hospital she worked at was way too dangerous to flee to. It was when they were holed up in a ransacked convenience store a couple of days after everything went to shit that the military started to bomb the city. They made it out, thanks to a man named Luke letting them hitch a ride on the back of his truck, but they’ve been on the road, looking for safe spaces to camp at ever since.

Every house they come across is either already occupied, filled with dead people, or surrounded by walkers; way too many for them to take out by themselves. They mostly stay in empty train carts or abandoned sheds, and only a couple of times have they managed to find an empty house with some food and water in.

Chloe doesn’t know what she would have done if she wasn’t with Tom on that first day; if she hadn’t returned home from work to see all the news broadcasts about spiking deaths all over the country, and called him to come stay with her.

She knows for a fact she’d be dead without him.

(She’s not sure whether that’s a good or a bad thing.)

She puts the cans of corn, beans, and soup she found in the cupboards into her bag, and puts a couple in Tom’s. They’d been running low on food, so she’s glad they found this place when they did.

“Babe?”

“Hmm?”

“I found a first aid kit, you think you could help me out?”

She puts the fire out and leaves the pan of boiling water on the counter to cool down, before following him into the bathroom.

He’s sitting on the edge of the bathtub, his wrapped up leg resting on the closed toilet seat, and she sinks down onto her knees, lifting the material of his khakis up and unwrapping the wound. Years of medical practise has made it easy to deal with wounds and blood, but the sight of the gash in his leg still manages to make her stomach a little queasy.

She’s just glad it’s from a piece of metal and not a bite.

She cleans and stitches the wound, trying not to wince as he grunts and groans in pain, clenching his teeth to stop from crying out too loud in case anybody hears them.

“Almost done,” she says, pouring some alcohol onto a clean washcloth. “This is gonna hurt.” He doesn’t have time to answer her before she’s holding it over the sutured wound, trying to soothe him with a gentle hand on his knee and a soft “shhh, it’s okay.”

He has tears in his eyes and she leans up to press a kiss to his cheek before pulling the cloth away and wrapping it up with a clean gauze.

She stands up, cleaning away the bloody bandages and first aid kit, before holding out a hand to help him up. He places a kiss on her forehead and thanks her, before he limps out of the bathroom and back downstairs. She stays behind for a second, taking in a few deep, ragged breaths before following him.

She looks around the rest of the house for anything useful, and she has to stop herself from jumping up and down with joy when she finds a small butterfly knife and some camping gear in a cupboard under the staircase. It’s never something she ever thought she’d get excited about finding, but she supposes eventually she’ll have to get used to this new world and the things they need to survive in it. 

The knife looks to be brand new, and she opens it up and runs a finger over the blunt side, wondering if it’ll be a good weapon for the walkers. She’d lost her other knife a couple of days ago - she’d jammed it into a walker’s head and had to flee before she had time to remove it - and she hasn’t been able to find anything good enough to protect herself with, other than a plank of wood, since.

Tom takes care of the infected usually, but there had been a few of them, and she wanted to see if she could do it. Turns out, she couldn’t, and the thought of having to fend for herself if something happens to Tom scares her to no end.

Instead of thinking about it too much - that seems to be all she’s doing these days - she packs away the knife and the sleeping bag, and moves onto searching the living room. In a cupboard next to the couch, there are a few candles that she sniffs for five minutes. One smells like cinnamon and the other of vanilla, and two more smell like buttercream. It reminds Chloe of home, and her heart aches at the thought of never seeing her family again.

“Smell these,” she tells Tom, holding them out. He breathes in the scent of all of them at once, humming in awe, and Chloe can’t help but laugh at him.

She finds a few magazines from four months ago, and she spends a few moments flicking through them, happy to be looking at something other than empty train carts and dead bodies.

There’s a huge bed in the one bedroom of the house, the other room being a study with a computer that won’t turn on, and a bunch of law books that remind her of Aubrey. She sits down on the bed, running her hands over the cool, dusty bedding, and closes her eyes, trying to imagine her life before the outbreak.

College. Her best friends, Aubrey and Stacie. Graduating and going to med school and meeting Alice, Cynthia Rose, and Chicago. Getting a job at Barden Hospital with them and meeting her coworkers, Flo and Barb. 

As she sits on this bed - the first bed she’s seen in weeks - it’s like she can pretend that everything is okay; that she’ll see her best friends tomorrow at work, and they’ll eat lunch together and exchange dumb jokes. Then she’ll return home in the evening to Aubrey working at the kitchen table, surrounded by papers and wearing her glasses that she always looks beautiful in no matter how much she hates them. Then she’ll invite Tom over and they’ll all watch a movie and order pizza, and they’ll start to make out halfway through the movie and Aubrey will complain before leaving them to it.

She can imagine her life as it used to be; normal and safe and surrounded by the people she loves.

But when she opens her eyes, she’s in a dead stranger’s bedroom and she’s alone again.

“Tom?” She calls out. “Tom!”

“Hold on, I’m coming!” He’s in the bedroom in seconds, dropping to his knees in front of her with a worried look on his face, and all she can do is burst into tears. “What’s wrong, Chlo? Hey, I’m here. It’s okay. Are you okay?”

She tugs him up to her by his shoulders, pressing her trembling lips against his as she pulls him on top of her. His hands are warm against her skin, and his fingers are rough but so very kind.

“I thought something happened to you,” he whispers into her mouth. “Don’t scare me like that.”

All she can do is nod and cry as she tugs at his shirt, taking a second to catch her breath when he pulls away to pull it over his head.

Tom is soft and loving when he touches her, and she knows she’ll still be sad and lonely after this, but he makes her feel a little less alone in this messed up world, so she enjoys the intimate moments together while they still have time.

* * *

She takes a second to look at Tom when they’re finished. His eyes are deeper, more tired than before all of this, and his face and arms are skinnier. His hair is messy and long now, and the stubble that he had two months ago has grown into a full beard.

“Hey,” he whispers as she runs her fingers through his hair, lightly scraping the side of his head. His smile is the kindest thing she’s ever seen, and she’s terrified that one day she may never see it again. “What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing.” She lies, smiling and kissing him gently, before pulling back. “Can I cut your hair?”

“Why, you don’t like the whole _ Jesus _ look I have going on?”

She laughs, shaking her head as she leans over to pick up her clothes.

There’s a pair of scissors in the drawer in the kitchen downstairs, and she looks around for a razor in the bathroom until she finds a bunch in the cupboard underneath the sink. There’s no shaving cream but she finds some soap which she guesses will have to do.

Tom comes into the bathroom a minute later in his underwear carrying a chair with him from the kitchen. He places it down in front of the sink, facing the mirror, and she catches him smiling at her in the reflection.

“Okay, make me look as pretty as you.”

“You’re already pretty.” She kisses his head, before running her hand through his hair, brushing it to one side.

Hairdressing isn’t exactly her speciality but she needs to be distracted from her thoughts, and this’ll take up a good portion of their time before they eat some dinner and get some rest.

She cuts his hair evenly, short on each side, and leaves it a little longer on the top. She moves on to his beard and he pretends to wince and jump when the cold scissors touch his face, and she slaps him on the arm and tells him to stop messing around. She’s smiling though - laughing, too, which she’s missed - and it feels nice to be safe with each other again. She finishes snipping his beard before wetting a flannel and rubbing the soap on it, smoothing it over his face so she can shave him.

When she’s finished, he almost looks like he did _ before _, and it makes her stomach hurt.

Then he grabs the scissors and stands up.

“My turn to cut _ your _ beard now.”

She laughs, shoves him in the chest, and tells him to get dressed.

* * *

They sleep for four hours before they’re woken up by the sound of groaning and clawing at the doors and windows.

Later, Chloe will kick herself when she realizes that the light from the candles she lit in the living room were what attracted them to the house in the first place.

Tom is already packing their things away, telling Chloe to get her new knife ready in case any of them have made it inside. The thought of them being in the house with only two exits makes her panic, but she focuses on her breathing and trusts that Tom will get them out safely.

They manage to escape out of the back exit. She grips Tom’s hand so hard she’s worried she’s hurting him, but he just pulls her close and promises that they’re going to be okay.

They walk for two hours until they stop at an empty broken down bus, and she doesn’t know what time it is but she’s too alert to even think about going back to sleep now.

* * *

She’s running a hand through Tom’s hair as he sleeps on her lap, and the crackling fire is all that can be heard in the quietness of the huge tractor shed they’re staying in.

She pulls her journal out of her bag and marks another day.

**99**

She flips the pages until she reaches the beginning, running her fingers over the ink of her past journal entries; over all the dates, and the notes, the _ Dear Diary’s _ and doodles. She convinces herself that all of this is keeping her sane.

She’s kind of thankful that the outbreak began when it did. There’s still a few months until winter, which means there’s still a few months for them to find a permanent home somewhere private where no walkers or scavengers can get to them. Where that location will be, she’s not sure, but she’s not giving up.

She knows it’s morbid, to be constantly wondering when they’ll die, but it’s hard not to think about that stuff. She’s watched so many people die, and although past-Chloe would think positively, it’s like this new world has changed her perspective of everything.

She misses her family and her friends, and even Bumper who would play loud music at 2AM on weekdays and make the hall outside her apartment constantly smell of weed. She misses the simple things, like showering more than once every three weeks - if they’re lucky - and listening to music, and watching movies before bed. She wishes she’d never have taken those things for granted.

Her hand stops playing with Tom’s hair as the warmth of the fire lulls her to sleep.

* * *

When her eyes shoot open suddenly, she immediately knows that something is wrong.

The sound of Tom’s confused groan makes her stand up, hand immediately reaching for the knife in her back pocket. She doesn’t think twice before she flicks it open, grabbing the walker by the hair before jamming the blade into its skull. The limp body falls heavily onto Tom’s leg, and her heart starts to pound as she looks down at him.

She’s still disoriented from having just woken up but she knows that look.

He’s in pain.

“No.” She drops to her knees, her hand grabbing Tom’s leg. “No no no no-n-n-no. Tom, no.”

He kicks the lifeless body off of him with his right leg and looks down at his other leg.

“Fuck.” he hisses, putting his hand over the wound to try and stop the bleeding.

She’s already sobbing, and if she could see anything through her tears she’d notice the clench of Tom’s jaw and his chest heaving as he looks at the blood pouring out of the bite on the shin of his left leg.

“No,” she whines, grabbing his shoulder and pulling him towards her. He buries his head in her neck as she hugs him and they both cry against each other until Tom pushes her back, struggling to pull himself up into a sitting position.

“Chlo-”

“-Tom, please. I can’t- I cant d-do this without you, I- please. Please, I-”

“-Hey, shh,” he cups her face, wiping her tears with his thumb, but it’s no use. Her lips are trembling as he pulls her in to kiss her forehead, and she’s sure there’s an indentation in her skin from where she’s still gripping the handle of her knife so tightly.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m so, _ so _ sorry.”

“Hey,” he smiles at her. He’s so kind and loving and gentle with her, of course he doesn’t blame her for falling asleep while she was supposed to be staying awake. Of course, she was the one to make the mistake of falling asleep in a dangerous place, leaving the dead to quietly sneak up on them.

Of course, this is all her fault.

“I’m sorry,” she chokes out. “I did this. I’m- _ I _did this.” He shushes her again, and he’s still smiling, and Chloe feels like her heart is cracking in two because she knows he’s in pain. “Tom-”

“-It’s okay.” He strokes her wet cheeks with the back of his bloody hand, rough knuckles smoothing over her dirty skin. “It’ll be okay, Chlo.”

“Don’t. Tom, p-please.”

“This is,” he takes a deep, shuddering breath, and she knows he’s trying not to burst into tears. “It’s just how it is. I’m sorry.”

The fact that he’s apologizing only makes her cry harder.

The struggle had attracted a few more walkers and before Chloe knows it, they’re about five minutes away from being surrounded.

She supposes now would be a great time to die. She has Tom by her side. They’ve survived longer than Chloe ever thought they could. It’s been exactly 100 days.

Chloe’s ready.

“Chloe.”

“I’m not leaving you,” she says. She has no idea what he was going to say to her but she feels the need to reassure him. To look after him, just like he’s looked after her so many times before.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I can’t leave you here!”

They both know what she has to do. They promised each other at the beginning that if they ever get bit or scratched, they wouldn’t let the other turn. Only now, as she’s looking down at Tom crying and telling her it’s okay - to just _ do it _ \- she’s not sure she has it in her.

“Hey,” he whispers, tears streaming down his face. “You have to. Please, Chloe.”

“Tom.”

“You’re gonna be okay, kid.”

“Please, stay with me. I can carry you out of here, just for a little while until-until-”

“-I can’t,” he shakes his head. “I wish I could.”

“Just for-”

“-It _ hurts _, Chlo.”

She sobs, watching as he puts his hand over hers - the one she’s holding the knife with - and guides it up to the side of his head.

“Tom.”

“If you don’t do it now, we’ll both be dead.”

“But I... I love you.”

“I love you too,” he whispers, finally letting himself cry. “I always have.”

“How long?”

“Since you dropped your coffee on me the second time we met.”

She smiles at the memory, and Tom grips her hand tighter.

“I didn’t mean to,” she sobs.

“It’s okay.”

He lifts his head up as Chloe leans down to press a kiss to his cheek. She squeezes her eyes shut just as she feels Tom’s grip tighten on her hand, and whispers her final goodbye before she digs the knife into his skull.

His hand falls limp beside him, and Chloe hates herself for not telling him she loves him sooner.

* * *

Using a table and the walker she’d killed earlier, she covers the barn door that the walker had managed to come through. The smell of it seems to draw away the other walkers, so she figures that she’ll be able to stay for a while.

A while turns into _ hours _ \- too heartbroken to look at him but too scared to leave him.

It’s unfair that she doesn’t even have a shovel to bury him with.

* * *

Although it feels wrong to take his things, she knows that she won’t survive without them. She puts the contents of her bag into his, since his bag is bigger, and checks his pockets for any food or weapons. She finds a pack of gum in one of his pockets and wipes her eyes, slipping it into her own pocket before covering him up with his sleeping bag.

She wishes she could stay for longer but she knows that he wouldn’t want her to. He’d tell her that it’s too dangerous and that she needs to keep moving to find better shelter - somewhere where the dead can’t sneak up on them- on _ her _.

She places one last kiss on his cold forehead before pulling the sleeping bag over his face and leaving the shed.

* * *

A few hours later, she comes across a house with the words ‘infected inside’ painted onto it in what looks like either red paint or blood. She shivers when she realizes it’s probably the latter. She’s tempted to open it up and take her anger out on all the walkers but she knows for a fact she’ll get eaten alive so she doesn’t.

Instead, she carries on walking until she finds a car at the side of the road. It has the words ‘GAIL HEAD WEST - JOHN’ spray painted onto it and she stares at it for five minutes, thinking about the fact that there are still _ living _ people around here. She’s so used to the dead walking around that she forgot there are still other survivors.

She wonders if Gail saw this car and headed West; wonders if John is still alive. She wonders who Gail is, what she does - what she did - for a living; wonders what her relation to John is. Maybe she’s his sister, or wife, or best friend, or daughter.

It makes her think of her own family down in Florida, and her heart _ aches _.

Maybe she should’ve left a message for Aubrey instead of leaving voicemails before the lines went down. Maybe she should’ve looked for her harder. Maybe if she left notes and directions to follow like John, Aubrey would be with her right now and Tom would still be alive.

There are no dead bodies in the car, but there are no keys in it either, and she has no idea how to hotwire it. Even if she did manage to get it started, she’s not sure where she’d go. Maybe West, to find the person who spray painted the car, or maybe the opposite way in case those people are just as bad as the dead.

What she does know is that she’s tired from walking and crying all day, so she climbs into the backseat and uses her backpack as a pillow, staring at the headliner until she falls asleep.

* * *

** _"Chlo, what are you doing?"_ **

** _"I’m recording! I got a new camera, do you like it?"_ **

** _"It’s great, now stop."_ **

** _"I’m gonna be a youtuber. We can be like Jenna and Julien."_ **

** _“Well you’re just as annoying as her.”_ **

** _“Wow.”_ **

** _“I’m kidding.”_ **

** _“That’s staying in the video, so people can see how MEAN you are to me!”_ **

** _"Shut up, you’re such an idiot."_ **

** _"Come on, humor me! Tell us your name and where you’re from."_ **

** _"You know my name."_ **

** _"They don’t."_ **

** _"Who’s they?"_ **

** _"The audience!"_ **

** _“There’s nobody here but me and you.”_ **

** _“The hypothetical audience.”_ **

** _"Nobody is seeing this video, Chloe."_ **

** _"Why?”_ **

** _"Well, we’re naked, and I don’t want the world seeing you naked."_ **

** _"Ha! Come on, tell ‘em what your name is."_ **

** _"Tom. Happy?"_ **

** _"And Tom, what do you do?"_ **

** _"I spend my days wondering why my girlfriend is such a nerd."_ **

** _"Shut up! It’s for posterity."_ **

** _"Posterity?"_ **

** _"You know, in case the world ends and I need something to remember you by."_ **

** _"Oh my God, that is a terrible-"_ **

Chloe’s eyes widen when the camera suddenly turns off, replacing the image of Tom with a black screen. She taps the side of the camera with her palm a few times, clicks the power button, and hits it against her leg. 

Nothing works.

She throws her head back against the car door with a sigh and lets the tears fall as a cool breeze washes over her.

Hours later, when a walker approaches her slowly, groaning and limping with one arm missing, she doesn’t hesitate to stand up and stick Tom’s knife through its left eye socket.

She throws it down onto the ground and kicks it in the head just in case it isn’t dead. Then she kicks it again because that first kick felt good, and then before she knows it her boot is covered in blood and she’s out of breath, crying angrily as she kicks the lifeless body over and over again.

She throws up afterwards when she sees what she’s done, and she has to remind herself that these people are dead and she’s _ not _ a murderer.

* * *

She heads South.

In one house she finds a bunch of food. So much that she doesn’t have enough room in her bag so she chooses to stay there for a while, until the food eventually runs out and there’s nothing else left for her to do but head out again.

Eventually, she forgets to mark down the days in her journal.

(Eventually, she has to use the journal pages to light a fire so she doesn’t freeze to death.)

* * *

In the next house, she’s so thirsty that she fills up a bottle with the water in the back of the toilet and cries when she sees her reflection in the mirror.

She finds a walkie talkie in one of the bedrooms and she’s crying as she tunes into every channel to call for help.

“Please, if there’s anybody out there, I’m- I’m in… I think I’m in Oakland. Oakland City. There’s a food mart just down the road, it’s… Oakland City, in Atlanta, Georgia. I.. My… My boyfriend, he died. I… God, please, if anyone is listening, _ please _ respond.”

She cries harder when the only response she gets it static noise.

* * *

In another house there’s running water but no electricity, and she spends a half hour standing under the lukewarm water, crying over the loss of both Tom’s life and her own.

She fills up 3 water bottles and packs them away, hoping that there are more houses around with running water and if she’s lucky enough, electricity too.

* * *

She isn’t lucky enough.

In the next few houses she finds, there’s no running water or electricity. 

In one of them, she finds a gun, and she spends 20 minutes debating whether or not to just end it.

She almost does, but all that’s heard when she pulls the trigger is the click of the gun signalling that it has no bullets in it, and she throws it against the wall so hard that it makes a hole. 

After, she sobs for hours until she falls asleep with her back against the kitchen wall, too exhausted to worry about anybody or anything coming in to kill her.

* * *

She spends two nights in a gas station in Greenbriar until she hears gunshots from outside and she escapes through the back. She considers going back to see who it is, to ask them to kill her or help her or do_ something _; something to prove that this isn’t all one big nightmare. 

Instead, she runs.

It’s all she’s good at lately.

* * *

After a few days, she loses track of where she’s going so she continues to head in the direction she’s already been going, which she thinks is South.

She thinks she’s hallucinating when she comes across a farmhouse with a whimpering dog in the backyard. He’s tied up and crying and he has blood on him and she wonders if animals can turn into walkers too.

It feels like years since she’s seen anything that’s alive.

It’s a German Shepherd and it reminds her of the dog she had growing up. Only this one is much skinnier and doesn’t even bat an eye when she approaches him and kneels beside him.

“Hey buddy,” she whispers, taking her backpack off her back and reaching inside for her bottle of water. She strokes his head and he lets her pour some water into his mouth until he lifts his head and tries to timidly eat the bottle. She smiles as she runs her hands through his matted fur.

She checks his nametag to see that his name is Hulk, and she repeats it which makes his ears perk up and his head tilt to the side. She uses her knife to cut the collar off of him and he struggles to stand up so she lays him back down and pets him, telling him that it’s okay and that he’s safe.

She knows that she only has one can of food left but this is the first form of life she’s seen since Tom and she’s not sure she could live with herself if she lets this poor animal die of starvation. She almost wants to track down the owners for being so stupid and leaving him to die out here, until she remembers that they’re probably roaming around dead inside the farmhouse anyway.

He watches, panting, as she reaches into her backpack and uses her knife to open a can of beans. She holds it out for him and he hesitates before sniffing it.

“Go on, you can have it,” she tells him. 

She couldn’t save Tom, but she has the chance to save this animal, so she does.

* * *

Hulk stays with her for a week before he runs away.

She stays in the empty house they found together a couple of days ago, and she doesn’t see him for a whole day until he comes back at noon with a dead rabbit. She’s too tired and hungry to even think twice about where or how he got it, or where he’s been all day. She cooks the rabbit over a fire in the backyard and shares it with him until they go back inside before it gets dark.

It could be infected but she doesn’t care, really. It’s hard to care when she doesn’t want to live in this terrible world anymore.

Hulk curls up next to her on the bed, and the two of them sleep until the sun wakes them up the next morning.

She uses the radio she found to see if there’s anybody who can help them, but it’s no use, so she packs her bag, and heads out with Hulk by her side.

* * *

There’s something oddly comforting about being the last person on earth.

Chloe knows that’s not true, but it’s what she tells herself sometimes, on the days where there’s no people - living or dead - for miles. It’s easier to think she’s the last person on earth than to think she’s stuck in a world with people who want to_ eat _her.

She hums to herself as she walks down the empty road. There are a few cars around - which would make this trip, wherever she’s heading, much easier - but they’re all missing most of their wheels, and the last time she tried to change a tire, she broke her foot.

Hulk interrupts her humming with a growl, and she looks to her left, in the direction he’s growling, to see a walker slowly making its way towards them. Usually she’d run or power walk away from it - the less she has to kill, the better - but she hesitates when she sees that there _ is _ nowhere left to run. A fence is up, blocking the rest of the road, and she mentally kicks herself for not being aware of her surroundings. 

The walker’s mouth, chin and jaw are covered in fresh blood, and its jaw is snapping, and Hulk’s growls are getting louder and louder until eventually, he starts to bark.

“_ Down _, boy,” Chloe says, patting Hulk on the head. He takes a few steps back and whimpers, and Chloe makes her way over to the walker, grabbing his head just as he reaches out for her, before stabbing it in the side of the head and dropping his limp body to the ground.

She tries to pull her knife out of the walker’s head but it’s stuck, and then suddenly Hulk is barking again.

“Shit,” she whispers as she tries to pull the knife out, “not again.”

He continues to bark until Chloe turns around to see that there are more of them heading their way.

She’s never faced a hoard of them by herself, so when more come stumbling out at the sound of Hulk barking, Chloe panics. She’s never faced more than two with Tom, never mind on her own. She knows technically Hulk can help her with them, but she’s not sure he can take on more than one at once and she _ refuses _ to lose him too.

She looks around for anything that she could use as a weapon, since her knife is stuck in a walker’s head for the second time. She’s about to panic and risk running past them all, when she sees a broken road sign lying face down on the floor.

It feels like everything moves in slow motion. Like she’s stepped out of her body and she’s watching herself from above. The first walker goes down with ease, the sign slicing easily into its skull and falling straight to the ground. 

The second grabs her arm and tries to bite her but she’s a lot quicker than him. She pushes it away, hits it in the head, and throws it towards the third one. They both fall to the ground, and she lifts her boot up and kicks the third one in the head, pinning him to the ground before leaning down and digging the pole end of the sign into its skull. The fourth is easy to kill since it doesn’t have any arms, and she tries not to look at it too much as she’s swinging the sign towards it and hitting it in the side of the head.

It falls to the floor with a thud, and Chloe tries to catch her breath as Hulk finishes off the last one.

She’s quickly back in her body, her heart pounding as she looks around at the six dead bodies surrounding her.

Hulk nudges her hand with his blooded up snout, and she takes a deep breath before dropping the road sign on the floor.

The blood on the sign covers up half of the writing but Chloe knows exactly what it says.

**DEAD ** **  
** ** END**

She laughs, reaching down to tug on the knife that’s still stuck in the dead walker’s head, eventually pulling it out.

“Come on, bud.”

* * *

She finds a car with the keys in the ignition and thanks God or whatever for finally _ giving _her something rather than taking from her.

It takes a while for the car to start and just as she’s about to abandon it, the engine roars to life and Hulk starts to wag his tail excitedly. She puts her seatbelt on and throws her backpack onto the backseat as she reverses out and drives around the two walkers she’d killed to get to the car.

There’s an old Fleetwood Mac CD in the car so she puts it on and smiles when the sound of Stevie’s voice comes through the speaker. Hulk looks confused but Chloe just smiles as she pets his head, keeping her eyes on the road as she drives down the middle.

It’s the first time she’s felt free since all this started. The first time her mind feels at ease. Her window is all the way down, Landslide is playing as the evening sun slowly disappears over the horizon, and Chloe feels _ okay _.

* * *

She pulls up outside of a gas station, using a pair of binoculars she’d found to see if she can see any movement inside. It’s dark out, and according to her watch it’s three in the morning, so she can’t really see much of anything due to there being no electricity.

Hulk whines, and she puts her binoculars on the backseat before reaching over for her backpack. And she knows she should probably wait until morning but she’s starving because she and Hulk had eaten the last tin of canned peaches yesterday morning, so she’s kinda desperate.

“It’s okay, boy,” she whispers, patting his head. “I’ll be quick.”

She makes sure to close the car door quietly after telling Hulk to stay, just in case there’s any walkers around that can hear her. She has a torch and her knife with her but she’s still scared, and she wonders if there will ever be a time where she’s not fearing for her life.

It’s important for her to stay calm though, because she has a dog to look after, and she promised herself that she won’t let him die like she let Tom die.

She’s not sure she could live with herself if she did.

Her heart is pounding as she pushes the door open with her foot, wincing as it rings the bell above it. She holds her breath, keeping as quiet as she can while listening out for any sign of life inside the building.

She knows the bell will ring again when she closes the door so she puts her torch in her mouth so she can reach up with her free hand to pull the bell off of the hook. It rings again as she tugs on it but she manages to get it off, placing it down quietly on one of the shelves next to the entrance.

She expects to be attacked from nowhere as she steps inside, but all she can hear is her own footprints on the sticky, blooded up floor as she makes her way further inside. She figures that if there was anybody or anything else in here with her, she would have heard it by now. They tend to be pretty loud when they’re stumbling around and groaning, and Chloe’s pretty sure they don’t need sleep so she doesn’t have to worry about waking them up.

Surprisingly, there’s more food than Chloe had expected to find. Only a few tins, and a few packs of biscuits, but it’s food, so Chloe doesn’t hesitate to shove them into her backpack.

Her flashlight flashes off and then back on, which she takes as a sign to leave. She’s never really been scared of the dark, but the thought of being trapped in a dark gas station with the dead roaming around outside really doesn’t sound all that pleasant.

As soon as she opens the door to step outside, she hears a dog barking, and her heart hammers in her chest as she makes her way over to the car.

“Hey!” she yells, holding her knife up in front of her, and she curses herself for not taking the gun she’d found in one of the houses. It wouldn’t have helped with the walkers, but it’d make her look a hell of a lot more intimidating than she does right now, holding a small butterfly knife.

The person trying to break into her car turns around quickly, dropping the crowbar to the ground and putting their hands up.

“I’m sorry,” they tremble, squeezing their eyes shut as their hands come up in defense, and judging by the voice it’s a girl, and Chloe is shocked when she realizes she _ knows _ that voice.

“Alice?”

The girl pulls down the scarf that was covering her face, and if it wasn’t for the sound of her voice Chloe wouldn’t have recognized her at all. Her face is skinnier than Chloe remembers and she’s all bruised and battered; eyes wide and terrified. It makes Chloe gasp.

“Oh my God!” Alice cries, pulling Chloe into a tight hug. The contact shocks Chloe, and she almost pushes her away until she realizes that this is the first human being she’s seen in months. “I never thought I’d see you again, I thought- I thought-”

“-Shh, it’s okay.” She rubs Alice’s back, squeezing her a little tighter. “It’s okay.”

* * *

Alice stays.

It takes a while for Hulk to warm up to her, but Chloe politely asks him to be nice to her because Alice is her friend, and she thinks he understands. It’s nice, having a best friend during the apocalypse, and the company of another human is nice too. Chloe almost forgot what it was like.

* * *

She cries to Alice one night after a particularly dreadful nightmare.

Alice tells her she has nightmares too, and the two of them stay up together, reminiscing about the past. Alice tells her about how much she regrets being such a bitch to some people in high school. She tells her how much she misses her big sister and that she hopes her dad is safe over in Chicago. Chloe tells Alice about Tom; about how she couldn’t save him.

“Is that who you were dreaming about?”

All she can do is nod, her throat too sore to talk.

* * *

** _“Chloe? Oh my God, Chloe, baby, are you okay? I’ve been trying to get through to you all day, have you-”_ **

** _“-Mom, I’m okay. I’m okay.”_ **

** _“You’ve seen the reports-”_ **

** _“-Yeah, I have the news on right now. Mom, what’s going on? I thought this wasn’t... possible. I thought-”_ **

** _“-I don’t know, sweetie, I know as much as you do. Just... be careful, okay? Hopefully they can control it, but just- I don’t want anything happening to you so just stay inside.”_ **

** _“I will, I will, I promise. Where’s dad and Caleb? Are they okay?”_ **

** _“They’re okay, they’re in the kitchen making dinner. Caleb thinks this is- he thinks it’s one of his stupid video games coming to life.”_ **

** _“Jesus.”_ **

** _“It’ll be okay, Chloe. Just be careful, okay? Stay with Aubrey. Stay inside.”_ **

** _“I will. I love you. Tell dad and Caleb I love them.”_ **

** _“You know I will. I love you so much, I’ll see you soon.”_ **

* * *

“Chloe, wake up.”

The voice beside her is quiet but panic immediately rises in her gut.

Her eyes shoot open at the sound of a gunshot, and she instinctively reaches out for the knife that lies next to her every night.

“There’s people here,” Alice whispers. “Two guys.”

“Hulk?”

Chloe is up in a flash, sighing in relief when she sees Hulk lying at the other end of the room. His head lifts up when he sees her, and Chloe brings her finger to her lips to shush him; the last thing she needs is him alerting the men that they’re up here.

“I’ll check the bedrooms!”

Loud footsteps make their way upstairs, and Chloe silently motions for Alice to get under the bed, as she and Hulk hide in the closet.

She doesn’t get time to second guess their hiding spot before the door bursts open and she hears Alice gasp.

“What the-”

An arm comes out from under the bed and stabs the guy in the ankle, and Chloe is about to bust out of the closet and yell at Alice to stop - or yell at the guy to leave or she’ll kill him - but before she can do anything, another gunshot rings through the house, and Alice’s struggling sounds quickly come to a halt.

She holds her breath as the man limps out of the room and back down the stairs, yelling for help.

The closet door opens and Chloe slowly sinks down to her knees, tears silently running down her cheeks at the sight of her dead friend.

Another friend she couldn’t save.

As much as she’d like to stay with Alice like she stayed with Tom, she knows there’s nothing else she can do now. Her survival instincts kick in and she rises to her feet, rushing over to the window and climbing out onto the front overhang. She turns around to help Hulk through, and doesn’t even get a chance to overthink it before she’s jumping off into the bush below.

Her leg hits the floor with such force that for a second, she doesn’t realize what’s happened. It’s when she looks down at her clearly broken leg that the pain starts.

Maybe it’s the adrenaline kicking in or maybe it’s because she’s not sure if she wants to die at the hands of two strangers that murdered her friend, but she pushes herself to her feet, looking up at the overhang at Hulk nervously getting ready to jump.

“It’s okay,” she whispers, trying not to draw attention to them. “Come on, I’ve got you. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Hulk jumps into Chloe’s arms, and Chloe cries out at the added pressure on her leg. She doesn’t have time to worry about the fact that she’s left all of her stuff behind except for her knife before she’s limping through the front yard.

A gunshot fires through the air and she falls to the ground with a scream, hand still gripping her knife. Her heart hammers and shakes inside of her, the searing pain in her leg quickly becoming too much to handle as her vision starts to blur. Hulk nudges her arm and she pushes herself up, ready to get out of there - ready to take him somewhere safe - but she collapses before she can get to her knees.

She’s faintly aware of a car pulling up near her and a few gunshots going off before everything starts to become hazy.

“Jesse, hurry the _ fuck _ up!”

The sound of Hulk barking starts to fade, and her eyes feel too heavy to open. She wants to scream, to tell Hulk that everything’s going to be okay, to ask whoever it is whose carrying her to _ please _help her, but she can’t do anything but hope that this isn’t the end.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! if you enjoy my writing, please follow me on [tumblr](http://chloebeale.tumblr.com/)


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